| Hunting Bill
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The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman will know what I am about to stay. He is entitled to make his argument about clause 6 standing part of the Bill, as it is presently drafted. Paddy Tipping: The clause should not stand part of the Bill in its present form. I say strongly to Opposition Members, and even more strongly to my right hon. Friend the Minister, that there will be an occasion—not today or during other discussions in Committee—when Parliament and the House of Commons will have an opportunity to discuss clause 6 again, perhaps on Report. My right hon. Friend should listen to the voice of Parliament that has been expressed on several occasions. Clause 6 has little chance of emerging from the Commons process, because many colleagues agree that the clause should argue for a ban on foxhunting and deer hunting. I hope that we will have the opportunity to enable that to be done as the Bill proceeds through the House. Mr. Garnier: I shall make nine preliminary points before asking the Minister some questions. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) for being so candid with the Committee. It seems that the Government's choreography is becoming a little ragged as we move towards the end of our discussions in Committee. Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal): Did my hon. and learned Friend notice that the hon. Member for Sherwood, who has just spoken, slipped rapidly from what Parliament had said to what the House of Commons had said? During our peculiar voting experience the other day, we clearly voted in favour of the retention of a second House, so what Parliament said is not what the House of Commons says. As long as this constitution allows us to have two Houses, it behoves all of us to reach a solution that is acceptable not only to the House of Commons, but to the whole of Parliament, particularly in circumstances when the majority of people do not want hunting to be banned. Mr. Garnier: What my right hon. Friend said is entirely to the point. The Prime Minister put the hon. Member for Sherwood and others in this mess. They must fight hard to ban hunting following the Prime Minister's intervention on ''Question Time'', and he put them in a further mess by upsetting them about the voting last week on the House of Lords reforms. Therefore, he has much to answer for, and I have no doubt that he will pay for that in due course. I want to return to my preliminary points, and then to ask the Minister some questions. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sherwood for echoing the comments of the hon. Member for West Ham, who is no longer present but who said, when we were debating clause 8, that the parliamentary Labour party timebomb on this issue is ticking and that clause 6 is in as much danger of being chewed up on the Floor of the House on Report as clause 8. Column Number: 944
11.15 amI shall listen with interest to what other Committee members say in this clause stand part debate; I trust that they will be as honest and candid as the hon. Member for Sherwood. I am wholly opposed to his view, although I salute his candour in expressing it, and I hope that he has respect for my view, although it is diametrically opposed to his. I, too, believe that clause 6 should not stand part of the Bill, although for different reasons. I want to explain them by making some bullet points. First, the Bill proposes a ban on deer hunting but adduces no evidence for singling out the practice as unacceptable, either on the grounds of utility or suffering, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said, although I will not rehearse his remarks. As my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) said last week, the deer of Exmoor belong to the community that farms and resides there and manages and cares for the herd. Hunting with hounds is a vital part of the management process and promotes the interest in and care of the deer that have led to that herd's outstanding qualities. I will not repeat the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire on the history of that. The hunting of deer with hounds is maximally favourable to the well-being of the herd as it discriminates against the old, the infirm and the diseased. We mentioned that this morning and last week. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said that it is the only method of cull that guarantees a clean head shot, leading to instantaneous death. That must be entirely uncontroversial; I hope that nobody will suggest otherwise. Therefore, it is at least as humane as stalking, which, although it is equally necessary for responsible management, always involves a risk of serious injury, followed by a slow and painful death. No such risk attaches to hunting with dogs. I like to think of myself as a reasonably experienced rifle shot. I have gone stalking in the highlands of Scotland almost every autumn since my late teens and early twenties. It is inevitable that over a range of 200 or 300 yards—hopefully less than that, and ideally under 100 yards—one cannot guarantee that one is going to shoot the animal dead. The circumstances in the highlands of Scotland are entirely different from those that pertain in the west country, where using a high-powered rifle at anything more than very close range is likely to prove unsafe because one cannot tell who or what is round the other side of a bush or a corner. It is extremely dangerous to treat the use of a rifle in Somerset and Devon in the same way as in the vast expanses of the highlands of Scotland. Although the quarry is chased, it is supremely adapted by evolution to run from predators. Hunting is a managed adaptation of a natural form of predation, and presents the quarry with a threat that it is instinctively able to cope with. Unlike trapping or shooting, hunting produces no immediate panic. Deer that escape the hounds are observed to be undamaged Column Number: 945 and able to return to a normal life. Long chases are slow with intermittent sprints. When the quarry comes to bay, it is preparing to defend itself in another way.Those who do not know about stag hunting should get out of their heads that it is a continuous lickety-split from one stage to the end of the day. There was a similar misunderstanding about foxhunting. I rather got the impression that those on the Government Benches, especially the Minister, thought that hunting started at 11o'clock and went hell for leather until 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon, non-stop with the hounds in full pursuit, helter-skelter, after the prey. That is no more true of foxhunting than of stag hunting, which is well worth bearing in mind when one considers what are thought to be the better arguments in favour of clause 6. Coming to bay is a natural response and can be achieved only by hunting with dogs. It is one of the responses being sought. Only when a deer can be approached can it be safely and cleanly shot. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said, the method by which deer are culled or put to death in stag hunting areas can be justified as being as humane as possible. In many respects, it is less worrisome and more humane than the disposal of livestock in an abattoir. My next point is mischievous. If one extended the logic of the argument in the Bill and clause 6 in particular, it would not be long before the use of sheepdogs to round up sheep or cattle before they are taken off to the abattoir was outlawed on the same grounds as the use of hounds in the culling of deer. Casualty deer—victims of road accidents or other injuries—cannot be easily found or dispatched without the use of deer hounds. Banning deer hunting will therefore lead to a serious welfare problem among deer herds. The Government may say, ''You will be allowed to use hounds to flush out injured or diseased animals'' assuming that the exemptions to hunting are not caught by clause 6. However, once deer hunting is banned, the deer hounds will go. The type of dogs required to carry out such a humane activity will not exist in a few years' time and the welfare of the herd and individual deer will be hugely compromised. Column Number: 946 Those are the preliminary points that I wish to place on record, but I have some questions for the Minister and any Committee members interested in responding. I have not thought of the questions myself. They come from the owner of the Porlock estate on the Somerset and Devon border, whom I know. He has an obvious and immediate interest in clause 6. In a letter to the Minister dated 18 December 2002, he writes:
coming into force? Those questions flow from the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton. Although this may not be the most attractive argument against including clause 6 in the Bill, according to my hon. Friend, it is a fact of life; the deer are seen to be a communal asset, but that sense of community ownership will disappear once hunting is banned. Particular farm owners will want to ensure that the herd on their farms is moved on or destroyed to prevent it from damaging the grazing. They will also want to exploit the commercial value of the carcases. That argument may be difficult to present, but if my hon. Friend is to be believed—I think that he is—it is a fact of life and something with which we as legislators will have to deal before we allow clause 6 to stand part of the Bill. The owner of the Porlock estate asked whether, if that were not the case, any advice had been given to the Avon and Somerset Police Authority as to how all needful garden owners on Exmoor
their holdings. The letter continues:
It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order. Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock. Column Number: 947
The following Members attended the Committee:
Column Number: 948 Luff, Mr. Mallaber, Judy Marris, Rob Martlew, Mr. Michael, Alun Öpik, Lembit Organ, Diana Owen, Albert Pickthall, Mr. Reed, Mr. Swire, Mr. Tami, Mark Tipping, Paddy Whitehead, Dr. Williams, Hywel
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| Prepared 11 February 2003 | |
